I've been transcribing some Buddhist sermons in Penang Hokkien, and came across a couple of terms I haven't been able to find in Douglas-Barclay, nor on the internet. Some of them seem to be known expressions (on the internet), I just haven't managed to get a meaning for them.

I wonder if anyone could help me? Here they are:

#) "gua3-toh4-kau3": some sort of religion. It's mentioned in connection with other ancient religions, like Buddhism.

#) "hO-hue sim" or "hO-hue e sim". This is a very undesirable state of mind or heart to have, and can be a condition one has, if one doesn't practice one's religion regularly.

#) "huan5-lo2" and "huan5-ho2". Both mean "to worry" (I'm only familiar with "huan5-ho2"). The first character is apparently 煩. Does anyone know the characters for "lo2" and "ho2"?

#) "lo2-mO3/7": The first character is apparenetly 老. Does anyone know the second character?

BTW, Douglas-Barclay says this means "aged and infirm". But in my usage of Penang Hokkien, it is specialized to mean "demented" and then weakened to "very forgetful" (used even for a young person). In my usage, it cannot be used for a very weak and old person, if that person's mental faculties are still fine.

#) "pO2-si1": What does this term mean, and what are the characters for it?

The context is "co3 pO-si" = 做 XXX.

#) "thuan5-kiet4": Is this 轉結, and if so, what does it mean?

The context is "tioh-be e-hiau thuan-kiet" = "has to be able to (or 'to know how to') XXX".

#) "tiau5-ti5". Douglas says that this can also be pronounced "tiuN1-ti5", and gives the characters as 張持.

Now, "tiuN1" could be pronounced "tiauN1" in some varieties, so I'd accept 張 as the character for either "tiuN1" or "tiauN1" (i.e. nasalized and tone-1). But, what is the character for "tiau5" (not nasalized and tone-5)?

#) "thiN1 e to7/to3". What might "to7/3" mean in this context, and what is the character for it?

The context that this occurs in is: "chut-si ti thiN e to" = "to be born in Heaven's XXX".

This is surely 普通, "normal/standard" as in "Putonghua", and 自然, "natural" (need to check if "ien" is a standard pronunciation though), although Wikipedia has an article about the concept of "Ziran" in Taoism

give "chu7-jian5" ("cu7-jien" in my orthography) for 自然, so that's very close. I'll listen again very closely, but the similarity of the sound, and the fitting into the context seem to suggest that this is correct.

This is known from Douglas, and my parents know it too. However, it struck me that the *spleen* of a chicken is also pronounced identically "ki3-ti5", sandhied form in PgHk would be "ki1-ti5" (because tone-3 => tone-1, rather than the standard Hokkien rule of tone-3 => tone-2). This was yet another item which I found quite revolting in the soup when I was young!

Does anyone know the hanzi for it? The mandarin form 脾脏 pi2-zang4 would appear to be quite unrelated.

#) siong5-siong5

This is given by Douglas as "usually, generally". Can it also mean *regularly*? The monk seems to use it in this way:

Quite aside from the fact that no one seems to know what "to3/7" means, it appears to me that the monk means "regularly" rather than something as weak as "usually, generally" in his use of "siong5-siong5" here.

I speculate that this is "cam-時" (literally "interrupted time"), so that it could be translated as "occasionally, every now and again".

Does anyone know this as a Hokkien 詞語? My parents have never heard of it.

Any idea of the correct hanzi?

#) This one is more complicated

I'm quite familiar with "seng3-te7" 性地 = "temper". However, the monk says in a number of spots "chai1-seng1-te7" or "sai1-seng1-te7" (sandhied). Nobody I've asked knows what this first word could be. There is of course "phaiN1-seng1-te" (sandhied) for "bad tempered", but this is clearly not what the monk is saying.

"i na-si cin-nia ok e lang5 - ta-ta jit <sai> seng-te e lang5, i siauN e siauN ka-liau si ok e" = "if he is a very aggressive person - a person who <loses his temper?> every day - [then] the thoughts he would think would all be aggressive ones"

In one sermon, it sounds more like "chai", and in another more like "sai", but i think the same word is meant in all cases. Of course, if anyone both knows the word AND can give the hanzi, I would be *most* grateful!

Furthermore, at one stage he says "na-si kong lu seng-te cin-nia TUA" = "if your temper is very BIG". This is a bit puzzling. There is of course "seng-te cin-nia ho2" and "seng-te cin-nia phaiN1" for "good tempered" and "bad tempered", but *big* tempered is not a phrase I was aware of, either in Hokkien or English. Anyone every come across this usage?

#) "si1-cin2" (sandhied)

This is perhaps a kind of worm. I'm thinking of "ca3-cin2" or "ca3-cing2" (sandhied tones), which is also a kind of very small (aquatic) worm - found in drains (and fed to aquarium fishes). However, I believe that this latter is borrowed from Malay "cacing", so this might not be related in any way.

Hmm...
In Taiwan, I think we'd tend to say 道理 or just 理 instead of 理由, but 理由 makes sense.
I would tend to interpret '有理由' as 'to have a reason', and '有道理' or '有理' as 'to make sense'.

Ah-bin wrote:
I first heard siong-siong last night in the PgHK Podcast. Is that the normal word for regularly? It sounds as if it comes from reading Mandarin texts in Hokkien.
I know there is also tiaN-tiaN 定定 . Does it mean the same? If so, which one is more commonly used?

定定 means the same thing and is more commonly used; it's more colloquial than 常常.